San Bernardino still has its historic courthouse, the California Theater and the Fox Theater Building â" that latter a mere shadow of what it once looked like. But the famous Platt Building, the California Hotel and so many others have vanished. About the only vintage business buildings left downtown are the Harrisâ and the Andreson buildings.

Both were built by architect Howard Jones, who was responsible for the courthouse, the Platt Building and the Municipal Auditorium, which has been gone for several decades.

The Harris Company has left a rather hollow legacy, at least for now. That building has been vacant since Gottschalks went bust in 2009.

But the Andreson Building, just across the walkway entrance to the Carousel Mall, is still occupied, nearly 90 years after it first opened its doors.

It was financed by John Andreson Jr., the second Andreson to make a big impact on the city. The senior John had laid a solid groundwork for his children to succeed. During his lifetime, he built several keystone buildings himself and served as a county supervisor.

Like many of his generation, the senior Andreson found his niche in a roundabout way.

In 1834, the German-born Andreson he left his hometown of Schleswig Holstein, near the Dutch border, at 16, taking a job as a cabin boy on a sailing vessel that made a voyage to South America and around Cape Horn, landing in Peru, before returning to England. He made a similar voyage in 1852 and made it all the way to California.

He was involved in commercial shipping along the coast and on the Sacramento River before opening a grocery store in San Francisco in 1861. Two years later, he was tired of that and set out for La Paz, Ariz., where he prospected for gold. But his success came from a brewery he opened. He made a small fortune from his fellow gold miners.

On his way back to San Francisco in 1871, he stopped in San Bernardino, fell in love with the city and went no further.

The people he met seemed to enjoy beer just as much as the folks in La Paz, so Andreson bought a small brewery and the acre of land it sat on, at the northwest corner of Third and E streets. By the time he sold his interest in the brewery in 1884, it was putting out 30 barrels of beer a day.

Given the reputation of San Bernardino at the time, most of that probably stayed in the city.

In the meantime, Andreson had begun building.

The first Andreson Building was on Third Street. The three-story brick structure was said to be the best-constructed building in the city when it was completed in 1872. It had offices and businesses on the bottom floor. The upper two floors had the 80 rooms of the St. Charles Hotel.

Andreson went on to build the cityâs post office and other structures.

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